Bullz-Eye Blog » Tess Harperhttp://blog.bullz-eye.com
men's lifestyle blog, blog for guysThu, 08 Dec 2016 18:50:54 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.10The Light from the TV Shows: Saying Goodbye to the Best ‘Bad’ Everhttp://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/24/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-saying-goodbye-to-the-best-bad-ever/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/24/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-saying-goodbye-to-the-best-bad-ever/#commentsWed, 25 Sep 2013 01:03:56 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=30822I don’t know if you know this about me, but…I kinda like “Breaking Bad.” I realize this is probably the first you’re hearing of it, because I’m usually pretty closed-mouthed about it, rarely hyping the series to anyone and almost never mentioning that I watch it, but, yeah, I guess it’s a pretty all-right show, y’know?

All right, enough pretending: obviously, I think “Breaking Bad” is basically the best show in the history of television, which is what I tell anyone who asks me what I think of it. You may disagree with my position, and that would be your right, but no series has ever captured my attention and proven so fascinating to me in quite the same fashion as this one, and when it ends its run on Sunday evening, I’ll be glad that it went out on the terms established by its creator, Vince Gilligan, but it’s going to leave a hole in my TV viewing habits that I’m going to have a very hard time filling.

With the show wrapping up, I decided it’d be fun to offer up a retrospective of all of the folks affiliated with “Breaking Bad” that I’ve talked to over the course of its run. If you’ve followed my coverage of the series over the years, you probably won’t be surprised to see just how many conversations I’ve had since Bullz-Eye first started spotlighting the show in 2009, but they’ve been a uniformly wonderful bunch, all of whom regularly made a point of expressing their gratitude for the coverage and praise that we gave the show. In turn, I’ve always tried to thank them for the gift they’ve given us.

Goodbye, “Breaking Bad.” Thanks for the meth, but most of all, thanks for the memories. You’ve given me plenty of great ones over the course of these five seasons, and they won’t soon be forgotten…especially not now that I’ve got all of ’em in one place! Mind you, when I say that, I’m actually speaking of these interviews, but it could also be said of the upcoming complete-series set – seen above – which, in addition to all of the episodes, includes a ridiculous amount of bonus stuff, both on the discs (most notably “No Half Measures,” a two-hour documentary about the making of the final eight episodes) and off (a Los Pollos Hermanos apron!), that no self-respecting fan should be expected to live without.

“The plan was originally to kill off Jesse at the end of the first season, but they really liked the butting-heads aspect of Walt and Jesse, the tug-of-war, and they thought it really worked. So Jesse and I are both very happy that they changed their minds.”

“There was a guy on set who had been a heroin addict for 13 years, but he’s been recovered and sober for a decade, I believe. But he was an amazing asset to me and a great resource. He was very open and willing to answer whatever questions I had…which was a little scary at first, because it was, like, ‘Oh, my God, how do I ask this person about the darkest days of his life?’ But that’s what he was there for, and he was so happy to help. I owe so much to him for my performance.”

“When ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ was over, I was looking for a drama more than a comedy…but if it was a comedy that came up, it would have to be as well-written as ‘Malcolm’ was, and it would have to be a different kind of character than I played on that show. That’s harder to come by. In drama, there were more opportunities, more options for me, and when I read this, it was just, ‘Good night, Nurse! I’m going after this sucker!'”

“I talked to Vince (Gilligan), and I said, ‘I can do a shady lawyer, but the problem is I’m not Jewish. Saul Goodman is Jewish.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, no, no. He’s not Jewish.’ And he goes, ‘What are you?’ ‘I’m Irish.’ ‘Oh, he’s Irish. You know, he’s Irish, but he took this name to try to win the appreciation of the gangbangers who would use him, so they’d think they have a Jewish lawyer.’”

“Jesse definitely has his faults and he has his problems with drug use, but (heroin) doesn’t necessarily have control of him quite yet. But you then see that the drug definitely had control of Jane. At the beginning, Jane was such a great influence on Jesse because she was clean and on the straight and narrow path. But then she just did a complete 180. She ended up being the worst influence for him possible, and they decided to do that dance together. They went down that dark rabbit hole, and it eventually took her. It’s tragic.”

“(Skyler) does not know what to do. And she’s placed in a position where, in order to protect her kids, specifically Walt Junior, she’s desperately tap dancing around trying to figure out which step to take. “Do I go here? What do I do? Do I do this? Do I do that?” And she’s weighing it constantly, and it’s a real state of chaos for her, I think, trying to figure out which path to go down.” – Anna Gunn

“My hat’s off to anyone who sustains a series for more than a season or two, because it’s tough. You always have the push/pull going on of ‘I want to keep them watching’ and ‘I want to keep giving them new things.’ To me, the way you hook people is to, oddly enough, parcel it out slowly. Don’t fill the waters with every bit of chum you have. Just put a little bit of bait.”

Bryan Cranston: Just picture Justin Timberlake. Jesse’s replacement is Justin Timberlake. Talk about ratings, man, we’ll bust through. I think that’s what we really need. That’s what we need. Take one for the team, Aaron, come on. Don’t be so selfish.Aaron Paul: Oh, man.BC: I would much rather walk away after a solid amount of shows that come to that natural end and let go, let it go, than to hang on. Or to have Walt’s French cousin come over who looks just like him. [Affects a French accent.] “Walter, ‘ow are you, my friend? You are in the drug selling business, no?”Bullz-Eye: Oh, but you’re cool with Jesse’s cousin coming in, right?BC: Well, sure, that’s different.Aaron Paul: (Throws up his hands in defeat) Oh, sure, ‘cause that’s Justin Timberlake!

“We’re (at the Church Street Cafe in Old Town Albuquerque), surrounded by all the Mexican food we can stand and all the margaritas we can drink. Bryan has been playing up the margaritas all day long, telling us how wonderful they are and how they have no bite because they’re made with agave wine instead of tequila. He is, of course, completely right: they’re delicious, and they go down way too smoothly. He’s also making sure that everyone’s glass is full at all times…particularly Aaron’s, which he consistently fills to well beyond capacity, sending ice all over the table and into his lap. The second time he did it, I don’t think Aaron thought it was nearly as funny as we did, but Bryan shrugged apologetically and said, ‘Hey, it’s a bit now!’”

“People love Hank as a common guy…and I love playing Hank as a common guy, too! Hank was so much more fun in Season 1 as a bit of comic relief to the dark stuff that was going on. Now he’s become part of the dark stuff that’s going on. While I kind of miss some of the lightness of Hank early on, as an actor, of course, it’s really fun to be able to play someone who is, in essence, a completely different guy now than he was when he first started.”

“The affair with Ted…was sort of a reaction of anger toward Walt, and it was really out of both rage and desperation. She just needed somebody to hang onto at that particular time. And then I think she realized, ‘Oh, that’s not what I wanted to do. That’s not going to help anything,’ and then she has to go through this painful thing of saying, ‘I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have gone there.'”

“It’s better to leave the party early than late. You’d rather leave people wanting more from you than saying, “Jesus, is that show still on the air?” So it’s a tricky equation and one I hope we will get right, as far as, ‘When’s the time to take the final bow with a show like this?’” – Vince Gilligan

“I never wanted to just come out and ask Vince what he had in store (for Gus), because I knew what he’d say. He’s this kind of creator, where he’d say, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ I think he’s the only person who can answer the question about how big he might’ve thought the part was going to be. I think it’s still growing.”

“Walt is on this journey, and I like the fact that he doesn’t know where he’s going. And, so, why should Bryan know where it’s going? Do you know what I mean? It doesn’t help me…and, in fact, if it’s any kind of subliminal preparation, then it could hurt the character. So I kind of want to keep it as fresh as possible for as long as possible, so that I can feel that one-foot-in-front-of-the-other tension that Walt has.”

“It’s crazy how, you know, after Walt kind of came into (Jesse’s) life, his life has just truly flipped upside down. He was very happy just kind of doing his day to day thing, selling his little day to day dime bags. But Walt and his greediness…greedy, really, because he has to be…kind of destroyed a lot of things for Jesse.” – Aaron Paul

“I found myself sitting at the head of the table, with Bryan Cranston on my left and Giancarlo Esposito on my right. Okay, so no surprise here: dinner was awesome. Cranston’s a man who loves to hold court wherever he goes, so he was telling us tales all night long, including one about working on ‘Seinfeld’ that gave him a chance to break out his very credible Larry David impression. Meanwhile, Esposito isn’t quite as consistently gregarious as Cranston, but he still proved to be an entertaining dining companion, particularly when he was telling us how he’d worked with Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones when he was 8 years old. There were plenty of things discussed that were underlined as being off the record, too, which is a journalistic code that I do not break…but, y’know, it’s actually kind of cool, because it means you end up privy to some pretty awesome stuff!”

“What’s great about well-written material is, if you can shock with justifiable actions, that’s the best. You can shock anybody at any time on television, but if it’s out of left field, if you’ve got a situation where it’s, like, ‘Oh, well, you know, he’s a crazy man, so he just goes and kills people,’ that’s weak writing to me. As I was reading the season première, it was certainly shocking, and I was going, ‘Oh my God, oh my God. But, wait, why would…?’ But then I realized, ‘No, that’s justifiable,’ and after that, I just went, ‘Wow, what a way to put paddles on the heart of the audience and jump-start their season!’”

“The first episode of Season Four is definitely not the episode to allow your kids to watch. It’s definitely not a show for children, but this episode is possibly chief amongst the reasons why that is. It’s not intended for the faint of heart. It has a very shocking moment in it that I don’t want to spoil for folks, but it’s the beginning of a season that my writers and my cast and crew are very, very proud of. It’s going to be very dramatic, very dark and full of twists and turns, and we’re very much looking forward to folks watching it.”

“Listen, I missed “The Sopranos” completely. I never got on “Miami Vice”! My career’s been kind of, y’know, it’s a little iffy. And all I can say is bless Vince Gilligan’s heart. He cast me in ‘Breaking Bad,’ and I’m in two episodes. And the second episode? Fuggedaboudit. Fuggedaboudit. The second one, I watched it in New York – ‘cause I did the ADR work on it in New York City – and I was on the phone with one of the producers in L.A., and she kept saying, ‘Steven, just be prepared. Be prepared. You won’t believe how this scene plays out.’ And just the way it’s cut… the way it’s acted and the way it’s cut… man, I’m so excited. I’m so thrilled and so fortunate to be in that.”

“They introduced me in the last show of the second season, and I go in and I do it, and once I actually saw it, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s really something. There’s really good stuff going on here.’ And that was my impression. I was really knocked out by it. But before that, even, I came home and said to my wife, ‘I just worked with this kid, and I think he’s really, really good.’ And, of course, that was Aaron. And as it turns out, I was really, really, really right. But he’s just a pleasure to work with. I’m very close with him. We give each other endless shit.”

Plus bonus content! In an Excised from the AV Club piece, Mr. Banks is interviewed by my daughter, Allyson. My promise to you: it will be the sweetest thing you read – and hear, since there’s an MP3 – all day.

“(Ally), do you like to pretend? Well, when I was little, I used to love to pretend. I just thought it was so wonderful, the flight of being anybody that you wanted to be. And you know what? That, quite honestly, is my first feeling about why I wanted to be an actor.”

“When I walked in and saw Bill Burr (who plays Kuby), I thought it was hilarious. We’ve worked together as comedians, so he laughed, and I laughed, too. It was so funny that we were playing these guys that were going to scare the hell out of Ted.”

“What happens in season five is that Walter White, instead of going, ‘Whew, that was a close call! Goodbye, everybody!’ he feels like a peacock preening. He just defeated the mastermind. He outwitted the smartest guy in the room. And that was the adrenaline kick that motivates him to go further. Not to be a shrinking violet, but to say, ‘I’m going for it. Let’s go. Let’s do it.’”

“I remember when we were shooting that scene (with Marie and Hank in the elevator)… you get so close, you’re in that moment, and then you have to start over again, and you get back in the moment. And we thought we had it. We felt like we had the one we were gonna use. And I think I asked Frieda, the woman who was doing my makeup at the time, ‘Did we get it? Did we get it?’ And she said, “We got it, we’re moving on.” And I just started sobbing, crying my eyes out. I just think, ‘My God, Marie lives like this every day, all day long.’ She’s wound up, it’s right there at the surface, but she just doesn’t let it out.”

Plus bonus content! In an Excised from the AV Club piece, Ms. Brandt proves that she is the real danger of “Breaking Bad” by hunting down and killing a wasp in mid-interview.

“I am the danger, wasp! You put that stinger away! I am the danger! Oh, my God. Here I am, going, ‘Oh, yes, please, write me an action scene!’ And I just killed this wasp, and, oh, God, my heart is racing… But, okay, I think we can carry on now. [To the wasp.] I’m sorry. It had to be you or me, okay? I’m sorry!”

“I didn’t really feel affected by (Jane’s impending death) throughout most of the time we were shooting that sequence and all that stuff was going down. It wasn’t until I was getting my death makeup. At first, I was like, ‘Oh, this is so cool! I look like a Tim Burton character! I look dead! Yeah!’ I thought it was rad! And it wasn’t until the final scene, where I’m dead and he’s trying to give me CPR… We had to stop. Everyone else had been, like, ‘This is going to be so sad,’ but I thought nothing of it until that moment. And when it hit, it was really crazy and weird to see how people would react to your death.”

“Well, you know, there’s no other way to say it: Mike broke a lot – a lot – of his own rules in the end, so you knew damned well it was not going to come to a good end. I guess the biggest reaction I had was, ‘What a great role this has been. What a wonderful gift that Vince Gilligan gave to me.’ And that’s truly how I looked at it. Now, as time got closer, it was hard! It was hard going through the season and knowing that…I have a good time when I go to work, so I’m going to work, having a good time, having a good time…and all of a sudden, that day is there. And it was an emotional day out there, my friend.”

“Like every other middle-class family with a kid who goes off the rails, everybody sits down and tries to do a post-mortem on it, but who knows (where the Pinkmans went wrong with Jesse)? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe he just chose poorly. You know, a parent’s job is to say, ‘This is a road you can go down,’ and if the kid says, ‘I don’t like that road,’ then what can you do about it? At some point, it’s about preserving the rest of the family.”

“It was at the beginning of the fourth season when I found out (Gus was going to die). I got called into Vince’s office. They said, ‘He wants to see you,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, that can’t be good.’ That’s never good, you know? Anyway, I spent the first 10 minutes talking with the door open, but then he got up to close the door to the office. And I went into my Gus Fring mode… and he, uh, got a little nervous. I said, ‘Sit down. Don’t close the door.‘ We chatted a little further, I came out of Gus mode and went back into being Giancarlo, but then he stood up again and said, ‘Look, I really just want to close the door…’ And I snapped back into Gus mode and said, ‘Sit. Down.’ And then he got really nervous, and he kind of stood there, awkwardly. And that’s when I busted out laughing. I said, ‘Go ahead and close the door. I know what you’re gonna say.'”

“When I went there, to Albuquerque, I had my first scenes with Jonathan Banks, who played Mike, and I was asking him all the questions about the characters and the histories and the relationships and Gus Fring and whatnot. And finally he said, ‘Have you not seen the show?’ And I said, ‘No, I haven’t.’ And he went, ‘Oh, for God’s sake…Go and watch it and come back to me, and then we can have a conversation!’ He was getting impatient with me. He was, like, ‘Go and watch it! You’ll like it! It’s good!’ So I went and watched it with my husband, and we watched the whole thing in, like, four days. We were, like, meth-head binge watchers.”

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/24/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-saying-goodbye-to-the-best-bad-ever/feed/0The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Leah Gibson (“Rogue”)http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/04/10/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-a-chat-with-leah-gibson-rogue/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/04/10/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-a-chat-with-leah-gibson-rogue/#commentsThu, 11 Apr 2013 03:07:53 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=25889Leah Gibson may not have a deep background in American television, but she’s breaking into the field in a big way as one of the stars of DirecTV’s first original series, “Rogue.” Bullz-Eye chatted with Gibson during the January 2013 Television Critics Association press tour, where we got some details about the show, including how she found her way into her character, as well as her reflection on being a part, albeit a small one, of the “Twilight” franchise.

Bullz-Eye: So how are you enjoying “Rogue”?

Leah Gibson: It’s great! I’ve never done anything on this scale before. I’m from the west coast of Canada, so I’ve lived in Vancouver for the last five or six years and worked on different TV shows…guest stars, recurrings, whatever…and had some small roles in some big features, like “Twilight” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” But being a part of this show feels very different. It’s a very wonderfully written series that’s been an absolute joy to be a part of. The characters are very in-depth, and the intricacies between their relationships are just a joy to explore from script to script. Being a part of it has felt very much like being part of a 10-hour film, in a way, and I certainly have never seen anything of the like in Vancouver while I’ve been there. So being the token “foreigner” with all these Brits… [Laughs.] It’s been a whole different vibe on set and everything than I’ve been used to!

BE: Can you talk a bit about your character, Cathy Laszlo?

LG: Yes! Cathy Laszlo is…I’m the devoted wife to a hot-headed gangster, Alec Laszlo (Joshua Sasse), who’s the eldest son of Jimmy (Marton Csokas), who’s basically a crimelord. The Laszlos in general are a very infamous crime family, and my husband is very sort of… [Hesitates.] A lot of muscle, not so much brain. He often creates a mess for others to clean up, and my character sort of represents his foundation, his support network, the thought behind his action. I come to influence him in taking advantage of certain opportunities and claiming the status that goes along with those things at what turns out to be at a very high cost to our family.

BE: How much of the character was already on the page when you came to the role, and how much were you able to bring to her? Were there any aspects that were added?

LG: That’s an interesting question. You know, I went through a handful of auditions before I was booked on this job, and initially the sides for my character were sort of…I could tell that there was more being alluded to than was on the page, and as an actor with limited knowledge of where the show is going to go, you don’t want to make any really solid choices and, y’know, sort of make the wrong decision. I heard at some point that I was no longer being considered for the role, but then I got a phone call saying they’d like me for a chemistry reading with Joshua. So I went in and met Josh, and we did our thing, and we workshopped a couple of scenes with Nick Hamm, the executive producer, and…it was only then that I started to realize where they were really going with Cathy.

And then I showed up on set and, really, to be honest, I was very much informed by the wardrobe, the hair, and the makeup. It was a total transformation for this character. I’d never physically played a role like this before, so it was kind of a joy to embrace the character in a physical sense and be informed by the wardrobe, and the specific choices about the hair and makeup. She’s decked out to the nines, long nails, long, big hair, heavy makeup. I’m, like, “Okay, I get it.” So I would step onto set and just feel a different energy. And I had a few comments from…y’know, I’d worked with some of the crew members before on various different productions in Vancouver, and they’re, like, “Oh, my God, I didn’t even recognize you!” So it’s such a joy to play something like that, and to really physically feel it that way.

BE: That’s funny that you say that about the importance of the wardrobe. I’d never really thought about how much it means to an actor’s character until I interviewed Tess Harper, who just couldn’t say enough about how much the costumer meant to her role in “Crimes of the Heart.”

LG: Yeah, y’know, it really is a collaborative medium we’re doing. I think that some actors have come prepared with a very specific perspective of what their character is, and in so doing they inform wardrobe and makeup about specific choices. For me, though, it was the opposite, and I was really happy about that. I sort of just opened my eyes, saw the look, and went, “Oh, my God, I get it now.” And the whole thing took a turn from there.

BE: What’s the structure of “Rogue” like? Is there a cliffhanger at the end of every episode, or is each episode relatively self-contained?

LG: Well, I’ll tell you that I am absolutely in love with the writing of Matthew Parkhill, our show creator. Something that’s so amazing is that in the first episode…we went ahead and filmed 10 episodes without filming a pilot, but in the first episode, immediately Grace (Thandie Newton), the undercover cop, her cover is blown. I just remember finishing reading the pilot and going, “Oh, my God, so where are they going to go next?” It’s amazing. Honestly, I feel like the writing is very satisfying, in that it delivers. It delivers to the audience, it answers your questions, and it just goes in very different directions and is very surprising. There are definitely cliffhangers, but you’re also delivered the answers to the questions you’re asking.

BE: Is the sort of series where someone can come in late and still understand what’s going on? I presume there’ll be a “previously on…” intro for each episode, but…

LG: I would honestly say that it’s the kind of thing you would want to watch episode to episode. But my understanding is that, being in the format of DirecTV, that’s possible. If you miss Episode 2, and they’re on Episode 3, you can just bounce back and watch Episode 2 first.

BE: How’s DirecTV been to work with?

LG: They’ve been wonderful. Honestly! And for me, having been so far predominantly a Canadian actor, this is my first major American show, and they’ve been just wonderful. They’ve been so incredibly behind the production, and I really feel that they believe in it. And it’s just lovely to feel so supported in any project that you work on, but they’re excited. Like, they’re genuinely excited. And we’re excited as actors, too, but we read the scripts, we’re there to do our jobs, and then whatever happens after that, we have no control over it. But at this stage of the game, they’re giddy about it, which is cool. So I just hope people respond to it!

BE: As you mentioned a moment ago, one of your past roles was in “Twilight.” How has it been to be a part of that phenomenon?

LG: Ah, yes, my little bit in “Twilight.” [Laughs.]

BE: Hey, even a little bit matters in “Twilight.”

LG: I know! I was talking about it earlier today that, y’know, “Twilight” happened to me a couple of years ago, I hadn’t done all that much yet, and I was still plugging away, but then all of a sudden I was part of this beast that was affecting every corner of the globe, and I was literally traveling all over the world to be a part of the promotional excitement of the film. It was an amazing thing. It’s just incredible to be a part of something that affects so many people in so many different cultures and that everyone responds to it.

BE: Which means you’ve got a lifetime pass to attend “Twilight” conventions as a guest.

LG: Hey, who knows? [Laughs.] But I’d like to think that there are a plethora of other actors who’d fill those spots before I would!

BE: Lastly, do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

LG: Oh, that’s an interesting question. Y’know, I’ve always been kind of an indie darling. I’ve done a lot of indie films in Vancouver, and I’ve always sort of had the mentality that wanting to work hard and prove myself through my work, speak through my work, and have that be what speaks for me as a person…that’s all I wanted to do as an actor. And so I’ve worked for free, I’ve worked for minimum wage, I’ve worked in anything that excited me, including some indies that never saw the light of day. [Laughs.] But at the time, it was a love affair. The work was, anyway. I wouldn’t say I have any regrets about anything, though. Everything happens for a reason. You try not to think about career moves all that much and just exercise integrity to your craft, really.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/04/10/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-a-chat-with-leah-gibson-rogue/feed/1The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Patricia Heaton (“The Christmas Heart,” “The Middle”)http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/12/02/a-chat-with-patricia-heaton/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/12/02/a-chat-with-patricia-heaton/#commentsSun, 02 Dec 2012 22:44:06 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=21708Although it’s not unreasonable to suggest that just about everyone knows Patricia Heaton best for her work in front of the camera, but she’s been known to step into the role of producer on occasion, including the 2006 film “Amazing Grace.” Her most recent procedural credit, however, can be seen throughout the month of December on the Hallmark Channel, and as is only appropriate for a holiday film, it’s a family affair: not only did Heaton co-produce the film with her husband, David Hunt, but it’s written by her brother, Michael Heaton. Bullz-Eye had a chance to chat with Ms. Heaton during the summer TCA tour, and although “The Christmas Heart” was the reason for our conversation, I was able to split our time evenly between the film and her current full-time gig: playing Frankie Heck on “The Middle.” By the way, “Middle” fans, please note that, given the date of our conversation, I had no way of knowing that my theory about Frankie departing from her job at the car dealership really was in the cards. I’m like freaking Nostradamus over here!

Bullz-Eye: As someone who has a sister myself, how weird is it to work with your brother on a project like this?

Patricia Heaton: Not as weird as working with my husband on it. [Laughs.] Too many relatives spoil the soup! No, it was great. You know, my brother and I have… Once he stopped torturing me and pinning me down and spitting on me and things like that when we were younger, we both lived and struggled in New York together at the same time. At one point we were both working at People Magazine: he was writing and I was a copy clerk. So we’ve been down the road together, and…he’s a great story guy. He has tons of stories, partly because he’s a journalist himself and he talks to people all day long, every day, and it just generates these stories in his mind. So this movie, “The Christmas Heart,” he had in his head for many years, and we’ve been trying to get it made. We’re so grateful that Hallmark gave it a home.

It’s an unusual Christmas movie, in that it’s very dramatic and there’s very serious themes in it. So it’s a little bit unusual, but I think that’s what’s going to be great about it. You’ll want to have popcorn on one hand and a box of tissues on the other. But it was great to have my brother having written it and my husband (David Hunt) and I producing it, and seeing the whole thing come off the page…we spent hours and hours and hours on the script, so when you start watching the dailies and you see it come alive, it’s so thrilling. And that’s what makes it addictive, ’cause it’s really one of the hardest things you can do, to take something from an idea to the screen. It’s a lot of hard work, but when you see it… It’s the kind of thing that really sort of lives forever.

And, by the way, Christmas movies do live forever. [Laughs.] “The Town without Christmas” is shown 18 times a year in December, and I still get these (residual) checks. I remember when we made it, we were, like, “This thing’s never gonna go anywhere,” because it was made on a dollar up in Halifax. But it was really fun…and it still runs! So there’s kind of a legacy with Christmas movies that they run together, so it’s kind of cool when you have something that you’re so proud of that you know it’s gonna get seen a lot.

BE: You’ve obviously got your own full-time gig going with “The Middle.” How hands-on were you able to be as a producer?

PH: You know, unfortunately, I was not able to go up to Winnipeg, where we shot it, but my brother Michael was. My husband and I were both in L.A. working, so we couldn’t go. But I have to say that the Canadian crews and the Canadian actors are superb, and they really know how to get things done on a dime. We shot the movie in 15 days! That’s really short. So, y’know, I watched the dailies every day that they would send back. Unfortunately, what you’re watching is what can’t be changed. Fortunately, though, my brother and A.J. Morewitz, who runs our company, were on set to sort of be our eyes and ears there.

BE: Was there any talk of you appearing in front of the camera at all for the film?

PH: Yes, but it just turned out that it coincided with my work schedule. But I’d love to do something with Hallmark, and we’re working on doing some other things for them. I would’ve loved to have been a part of it, though. And, fortunately, we got the amazing Teri Polo and Tess Harper, who really give the most phenomenal performances. I’ve probably seen the movie six times now, and I cry every single time. And this movie…I’ve known it since page one, so there’s no surprises in it for me, and I’m still moved every time by their performances.

PH: [Excitedly.] Oh, you do? That’s you…? Oh, thank you so much! Those are really great reviews, because you really go through it.

BE: Well, you know, I’ve got a child. And I live a very low-to-middle-class lifestyle.

PH: [Laughs.] Oh, okay, so you’re really connecting with it. Well, I read them every week! In fact, let me make sure I send out the link on my Twitter…

BE: How was it for you to settle back into a family-sitcom role after having had a brief-ish break to do “Back to You”?

PH: Well, it was really sad, because on “Back to You” I got to wear fabulous clothes. My character’s name, Kelly Carr, was actually embroidered into all the suits that I wore. I was, like, “Wow, yay, I finally get a fashion show!” And then that got canceled, and now I’m getting put back into the Midwest, with a family who’s on the lower end of the economic scale. So I don’t know what God’s plan for me is…but it’s apparently not for me to be Sarah Jessica Parker in “Sex and the City,” I guess! [Laughs.]

Part of “Back to You” was that you want to take a role that’s different from the one you just did, so I went from being the wife on “Everybody Loves Raymond” to being Kelly Carr on “Back to You,” which was really wonderful and exciting. Kelsey (Grammer) is a terrific person and actor. But when the script for “The Middle” came along, I immediately thought, “I’m not going to do a mom again,” but then I read it, and it felt extremely different from “Raymond.” And I had not done a single-camera comedy before, and I sort of wanted that skill set in my quiver. And as long as I could get used to the hours…I mean, it’s 12 to 14 hours a day, and I still have four kids! But it’s interesting that my children’s school schedules are such that they’re gone from seven in the morning ’til usually six at night, so they’re almost gone the same amount of time that I am. So it really worked out well that, when they were younger and they needed me there, I could have them on the set with me every day on “Raymond.” And now, when I’m working these much longer hours, they’re also working long hours, too, in their own lives, so I’m not missing too much of their lives. And the great thing about television…and I was talking to Teri about this…versus being in movies, you’re home. You come home every night and can have dinner, you have your weekends, you get some hiatus weeks off. So you can almost have a pretty normal family life!

BE: Over the course of the show to date, you’ve seen the car dealership slowly slip into the background. How have you felt about that? Certainly the home scenes are consistently hilarious. Do you enjoy being able to focus more on the family.

PH: Uh-huh. I think when the creators imagined the show, they have elements in it, and they explore those elements and see what really takes hold. And you sort of gravitate from one place to the next, and as the actors start to fill out the characters, you start to figure out what works and what seems to be resonating. Because the kids and Mike are so well-written and are so well-acted, of course, by Neil Flynn, Eden Sher, Charlie McDermott, and Atticus Shaffer, the writers and I think the audience was more interested in the family. So that’s why you tend to go there. And I think Frankie may have a change of workplace this year. I also noticed we weren’t going to Ehlert’s quite as much, and I think that’s because the characters had gotten so full, and we’ve gotten to know them so well and have started to explore different aspects of their lives at school or whatever, that it was just a natural progression to be more with the family.

BE: In fact, I think I’ve said in reviews a couple of times, surely they’re on their way to sending Frankie back to school or something. There’s got to be some way that they’re going to weed out the car dealership altogether sooner than later.

PH: Right. But she needs to be working, because they need the money, so we’ll find something. But it’d be great if I’d either go back to school or get another job…or maybe do a couple of things. You know, what’s great about the way they write the show is that it sometimes takes a couple of episodes to resolve an issue. Like the dishwasher.

BE: Uh, yeah, our dishwasher was going out right as that storyline kicked in.

PH: It did…?

BE: Yep. So thanks for that.

PH: [Laughs.] So, yeah, I think it’d be fun to see Frankie sort of searching for a job for a few episodes before landing in the right place. I don’t know if that’s what going to happen, but we’ll see.

BE: Do you have a favorite episode of the series to date? Or more than one?

PH: I have some favorite scenes. In fact, we were just nominated for a Humanitas award for last season’s opening…

BE: …when they were coming home from Aunt Ginny’s funeral (in “The Map”)?

PH: [Smiles.] Yes. The car scene. You know, we love car scenes as a cast, because we don’t have to worry about blocking, they shoot them pretty quickly because they only shoot them in one direction, so you don’t have to worry about them re-lighting so much. But it’s also fun to just get a chance to do a…that’s a very long scene. It was probably about 15 pages, or something like that. So just to have a really long discussion… And it just bounced back and forth so well between the different family members, like a real family talk, and went in all these different directions. I just thought it was so satisfying as an actor to shoot that scene. So that’s probably one of my favorite episodes. I also love anything that Sue’s involved in. You know, I’ve always said that if we ever get an Emmy nomination, it’s gonna be because of Eden Sher.

BE: If she doesn’t hurry up and get one…

PH: I know! There has to be some sort of protest if she doesn’t get one.

BE: I am 100% behind that.

PH: I think part of the issue is that there’s a lot of product out there. So we’re competing against a lot of different people, and there’s a lot of shows in the comedy category that don’t necessarily jump out at you and scream “comedy,” so…it’s a little odd. It’s sometimes like comparing apples and oranges in the comedy category, so it’s tough.

BE: Well, I feel like “The Middle” has been perpetually underrated since it first started.

PH: I agree. But I also am so grateful that the critics keep saying that. [Laughs.] And keep our name out there in the process!

BE: Do you find it hard playing Frankie as self-centered as she so often comes across?

PH: [Bursts out laughing.] Okay, you’re the first person who’s said that Frankie’s self-centered. That’s such a…it’s probably because you’re a guy. I see Frankie as completely selfless, and I think if you think she’s self-centered, it’s because she worries about everything, so… [Hesitates.] What about her do you find self-centered?

BE: Okay, well, maybe self-centered isn’t the right word. But she gets so obsessed with things…

PH: She does get obsessed. [Laughs.]

BE: …often getting caught up in them to the point that sometimes she’s not even paying attention to the person or thing responsible for starting the obsession in the first place. If that makes sense.

PH: Okay, right. That’s different. That’s not self-obsessed. But I would definitely agree with you that she does get obsessed about things. And I think that early on in my parenting, I was obsessed with doing things for the kids and trying to make sure that this was happening and really being controlling and thinking I had to make all these things happen in my kids’ lives for them to be successful human beings out in the world. And as I’ve gotten older and just more tired… [Laughs.] I’ve just sort of realized that my children have a certain set personality that no amount of my interfering is going to change. There are certain things that you can do to sort of open them up to different experiences and see if they respond. I think that’s the most parents can do. “I notice you like to read. Try this.” “I notice you have really good hand/eye coordination. Try this.” That’s the most you can do as a parent, I think. And once I started realizing that, I was able to relax. Frankie hasn’t realized that yet. I think she knows that her family’s at quite a disadvantage financially, and she knows that she and Mike aren’t the greatest parents, and their kids aren’t going to be doing dressage or whatever.

The thing I really relate to is that they’re very busy, and they can’t be driving the kids all over the place and showing up for everything. I’ve had that in my life. I remember we had four kids in AYSO Soccer, and what it meant was all day Saturday and all day Sunday we had to sit and watch completely talentless kids run around on a soccer field. [Laughs.] And my husband, who’s British, could not stand it. He’s, like… [Adopts a British accent.] “Look at what they’re doing! The coaches, they’re ridiculous!” And we just said, “Nope, we’re not doing it.” We pulled everybody out. Same with baseball. We pulled everybody out of Little League. The kids didn’t really want to do it, anyway. And as a result, our kids are big, fat couch potatoes who only play video games. [Laughs.] So see how that worked? Really successful. So I totally relate to the Hecks in that I just can’t be that kind of parent…and yet I feel guilty that I’m not that kind of parent.

BE: Lastly, I’ve read how everyone brings their own ideas to the writers for possible story ideas. Is there anything from your own life that’s made into an episode?

PH: One of the most obvious ones was during the first season. For some reason, I thought it would really add a lot to our family to host an international student from Japan. My son was studying Japanese at the time at his high school, so they had asked if they had any parents who would be hosts. And that happened once when I was growing up, the people across the street had these Italian guys stay at their house, and I thought, “That’s one of my clearest memories from growing up. I want to recreate that for my kids!” A lot of things that parents do is because they’re trying to create memories for their kids. That’s why they involve them in all these activities. So we did that, and I just remember every day coming to the set, going, “Omigod, this Japanese kid’s just standing in the corner staring at us, and he doesn’t speak any English.” So I said, “Can you imagine if the Hecks…”

I mean, I think my life is pretty good, but when this kid’s staring at us, I’d start feeling like we’re the ugly Americans, and everything we do is awful. Can you imagine if someone came to the Heck house and watched how they operated? I said, “We have to have them have an exchange student.” So that was really taken from that. And the young man who stayed with us, who was a lovely guy, came and visited the set, so they experienced firsthand how he just kind of stood there and never smiled. We have pictures of him, and he’d just… [Offers frozen stare.] So we did that episode with Matthew Moy (who now plays Han on “2 Broke Girls”) as the Japanese exchange student, and it was just so much fun. Matthew is such a wonderful, funny actor.